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Dalai Lama wants US help with Tibet

The Dalai Lama meets with US Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky on Monday in Ann Arbor, Michigan. PHOTO : AP

The Dalai Lama asked Washington for help on Monday in improving the situation in Tibet, in the highest level meeting with the US administration since Beijing’s crackdown in his homeland.

“At this moment we need your help,” he told the US special envoy on Tibet, Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, as they met in Michigan, adding that the issue of Tibet was “very significant.”

Dobriansky reiterated a US appeal for dialogue between Beijing and the Dalai Lama, saying the Bush administration “has expressed concern and has urged restraint” in the Himalayan region.

“[US] President [George W.] Bush steadfastly supports the need for dialogue and today’s meeting offers an opportunity to discuss Tibet with His Holiness,” she told reporters.

It was Dobriansky’s 12th meeting with the Dalai Lama aimed at finding a way to resolve the Tibet issue amicably, the State Department said.

“We want to hear from him about his ideas and what he believes might be the next appropriate steps in this,” department spokesman Tom Casey said.

“We are certainly going to, of course, also continue to have discussions with the government of China about this,” he said.

Meanwhile, China yesterday condemned both Dobriansky’s meeting and a decision by Paris city councilors on Monday to make the Dalai Lama an honorary citizen of the French capital, saying the move had hurt relations.

“China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” to the honor, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu (姜瑜) said in a statement posted on the ministry’s Web site.

“This interferes rudely with China’s internal affairs and seriously harms the Sino-French relationship, and in particular the existing friendly ties between Paris and Beijing,” she said. “The fact that this moment the Paris city council decides to make the Dalai Lama an honorary citizen can only be seen as a serious challenge to 1.3 billion Chinese including Tibetans.”

“China requires that France immediately take effective steps to remove the severely negative impact of its erroneous action,” she said.

The Paris councilors voted to award honorary citizenship to the Dalai Lama and Hu Jia (胡嘉), the human-rights activist who was jailed in China earlier this month on charges of attempted subversion.

Jiang also told reporters in Beijing yesterday that China did not agree with “individual radical actions,” referring to unruly scenes that evolved during anti-Western protests targeting the stores of French retailer Carrefour last weekend.



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